Qualification games started in 2019 for all 6 of the confederations around the world.
Each confederation is designated a certain amount of slots for teams to qualify.
AFC (Asia): 4 or 5
CAF (Africa): 5
CONCACAF (North/Central America & Caribbean): 3 or 4
CONMEBOL (South America): 4 or 5
OFC (Oceania): 0 or 1
UEFA (Europe): 13
The 32 teams that qualify, are then placed into 4 pots based on their FIFA ranking.
The top 7 teams plus the host are placed in pot 1.
The rest of the teams are then placed into corresponding pots based on their FIFA ranking.
9-16 in pot 2, 17-24 in pot 3, and 25-32 in pot 4.
This ensures the highest ranked teams are spread across groups.
Teams are then drawn at random and placed into the next available group.
No group can have more than two teams from the same confederation except for Europe.
If a non-European team is drawn into a group that already has a team from its region, it will be placed into the next viable group.
